CHAPTER XI.
If the Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809, irritated Napoleon, Macon’s Act of May 1, 1810, might be expected to work in a manner still more active.
The story has shown that Napoleon, toward the end of the year 1809, felt many difficulties in giving new shape to his American policy after it had been ruined by the Non-intercourse Act. His fixed idea required the seizure of every American ship in Europe beyond the borders of France, as he had for years seized American ships in his own ports. In part this wish sprang from the Continental system, and was excused to some extent by the plea that American commerce could be carried on only under British protection; in part the seizure of American ships was a punishment for defying the Emperor’s orders; and in part it was due to his necessities of finance.
December 19, 1809, Napoleon wrote a brief order to Berthier, ordering the seizure of all American vessels in the Spanish ports within his control;[161] vessels and cargoes, he said, were to be considered good prize. Having taken this measure, he called a council of ministers for the next day, and ordered Maret to bring there “everything relating to the judgments of the prize-court; to the merchandise sequestered in the ports, which is spoiling. If you have not all the information, ask the Minister of Finance.”[162]
The meaning of this preparation was to be sought in the Cabinet itself, and in the Emperor’s surroundings. Peace with Austria left many vexations in Napoleon’s path. Perhaps the unhappy situation of his brother Joseph at Madrid troubled him less than the difficulty of reconciling the Empress Josephine to a divorce, or the mortifications of negotiating for a wife among Russian, German, and Austrian princesses; but annoyances like these, though serious for ordinary men, could not be compared with the constant trouble created by the Continental system of commercial restrictions and the want of money it caused. Threatened with financial difficulties, and obliged to study economies as well as to press contributions of war, the Emperor found himself met by something resembling opposition among his own ministers. As was his habit, he yielded at first to the advice he disliked, and promised to do something for French industry. In November he appointed a new Minister of the Interior, Montalivet, and lectured him on the slowness of his bureaus in acting for the good of commerce.[163] From such a mouth such a lesson startled the hearer, and Montalivet threw himself with zeal into the prescribed work. To Fouché the Emperor read another lecture compared with which the discourse to Montalivet was commonplace. Fouché, a pronounced opponent of Napoleon’s commercial restrictions, during the Emperor’s absence in Austria distributed too freely his licenses for foreign trade: “I recognize always the same course in your acts,” Napoleon wrote him. “You have not enough legality in your head.”[164]
While thus teaching one minister to cherish commerce, and another to respect legality, the Emperor listened to Champagny, who lost no chance of advising the encouragement of neutral trade; and these three ministers—Champagny, Fouché, and Montalivet—found a strong ally in the Minister of the Treasury, Mollien, who has left the recorded opinion that the Imperial system of commercial restriction was “the most disastrous and the most false of fiscal inventions.”[165] The bias of Decrès, the Minister of Marine, may be inferred from a story told by Marshal Marmont,[166] who, coming to Paris at the close of 1809, called on his old friend and talked with the enthusiasm of a successful soldier about the Emperor. “Well, Marmont,” replied Decrès, “you are pleased at being made a marshal; you see everything in bright colors. Do you want me to tell you the truth and to unveil the future? The Emperor is mad—absolutely mad! He will upset us all, and everything will end in a terrible disaster.” Taken in connection with King Louis’ attitude in Holland, the Cabinet opposition of December, 1809, amounted to rebellion against Napoleon’s authority.
At the Cabinet council of December 20 Montalivet made a written report on the subject of American cotton, which threw so much blame on the Imperial policy as to call a written contradiction from Napoleon. “An American vessel,” the Emperor replied the next day,[167] “coming from Louisiana to France will be well received here, no act of the government forbidding the admission of American ships into French ports.” The Americans, he explained, had prohibited commerce with France while permitting it with Holland, Spain, and Naples; and in consequence “his Majesty has used his right of influence over his neighbors because he was unwilling that they should be treated differently from France, and he has sequestered the ships destined for their ports;” but no such provision had been made against American ships entering French ports.
Naturally piqued at an Imperial assertion that he had shown ignorance of facts that deeply concerned his department, Montalivet sent to the Treasury for information, with which, a few days afterward, he routed the Emperor from the field. Unable to answer him, Napoleon referred his report to Gaudin, Minister of Finance, with a curious marginal note, which showed—what his ministers evidently believed—that the Emperor understood neither the workings of his own system nor the laws of the United States:—
“Referred to the Minister of Finance to make me a report on this question: (1) How is it conceivable that American ships come from America in spite of the embargo? (2) How distinguish between ships coming from America and those coming from London?”
Armstrong obtained immediate and accurate knowledge of this struggle in council. Only a week after the Emperor wrote his note on the margin of Montalivet’s report, Armstrong sent home a despatch on the subject:[168]—
“The veil which for some weeks past has covered the proceedings of the Cabinet with regard to neutral commerce is now so far withdrawn as to enable us to see with sufficient distinctness both the actors and the acting. The Ministers of Police and of the Interior (Fouché and Montalivet) have come out openly and vigorously against the present anti-commercial system, and have denounced it as ‘one originating in error and productive only of evil, and particularly calculated to impoverish France and enrich her enemy.’ While they have held this language in the Cabinet they have held one of nearly the same tenor out of it, and have added (we may suppose on sufficient authority) the most solemn assurances that the Emperor ‘never meant to do more than to prevent the commerce of the United States from becoming tributary to Great Britain; that a new decision would soon be taken by him on this subject, and that from this the happiest results were to be expected.’”
As though to prevent President Madison from showing undue elation at this announcement for the fiftieth time that the happiest results were to be expected from the future, Armstrong wrote another letter, four days afterward,[169] on the new confiscations and their cause. Frenchmen he said would reason thus: “There is a deficit of fifty millions in the receipts of last year. This must be supplied. Why not then put our hands into the pockets of your citizens once more, since, as you continue to be embroiled with Great Britain, we may do it with impunity.” Armstrong was angry, and could not analyze to the bottom the Emperor’s methods or motives. Thiers, in later years having the advantage of studying Napoleon’s papers, understood better the nature of his genius. “To admit false neutrals in order to confiscate them afterward, greatly pleased his astute (rusé) mind,” wrote the French historian and statesman,[170] “little scrupulous in the choice of means, especially in regard to shameless smugglers who violated at once the laws of their own country and those of the country that consented to admit them.” This description could not properly be applied to Americans, since they violated neither their own law nor that of France by coming to Amsterdam, San Sebastian, and Naples; but Thiers explained that the Emperor considered all Americans as smugglers, and that he wrote to the Prussian government: “Let the American ships enter your ports! Seize them afterward. You shall deliver the cargoes to me, and I will take them in part payment of the Prussian war-debt.”[171] Meanwhile the confiscation of American ships helped in no way the objects promised by Napoleon to Montalivet and Fouché. At a loss to invent a theory on which neutrals could be at the same time plundered and encouraged, the Emperor referred the subject to Champagny, January 10, in an interesting letter.[172] He called for a complete history of his relations with the United States since the treaty of Morfontaine. He ordered the recall of Turreau, in whom he said he had little confidence, and who should be replaced by a more adroit agent:—
“Have several conferences, if necessary, with the American minister as well as with the Secretary of Legation who has just come from London; in short, let me know your opinion on the measures proper to be taken to get out of the position we are in (pour sortir de la position où nous nous trouvons).”
“All the measures I have taken, as I have said several times, are only measures of reprisal.... It was only to the new extension given to the right of blockade that I opposed the Decree of Berlin; and even the Decree of Berlin ought to be considered as a Continental, not as a maritime blockade, for it has been carried out in that form. I regard it, in some sort, only as a protest, and a violence opposed to a violence.... Down to this point there was little harm. Neutrals still entered our ports; but the British Orders in Council necessitated my Milan Decree, and from that time there were no neutrals.... I am now assured that the English have given way; that they no longer levy taxes on ships. Let me know if there is an authentic act which announces it, and if there is none, let me know if the fact is true; for once I shall be assured that a tax on navigation will not be established by England, I shall be able to give way on many points.”
All Napoleon’s ministers must have known that these assertions of his commercial policy were invented for a momentary purpose. He had himself often declared, and caused them to declare, that his Continental system, established by the Berlin Decree and enforced before the Orders in Council were issued, had a broad military purpose quite independent of retaliation,—that it was aimed at the destruction of England’s commerce and resources. As for his profession of ignorance that England had abandoned her transit duties on neutral merchandise, every minister was equally well aware that only six months before, the Emperor had discussed with them the measures to be taken in consequence of that abandonment; had sent them the draft of a new decree founded upon it, and had finally decided to do nothing only because England had again quarrelled with America over Erskine’s arrangement. The pretexts alleged by Napoleon were such as his ministers could not have believed; but they were satisfied to obtain on any grounds the concessions they desired, and Champagny—or as he was thenceforward called, the Due de Cadore—sent to Armstrong for the information the Emperor professed to want.
January 18, M. Petry, at the order of Cadore, called on the American minister, and requested from him a written memorandum expressing the demands of his Government. Armstrong drew up a short minute of the provisions to be made the material of a treaty.[173] The first Article required the restoration of sequestered property; the next stipulated that any ship which had paid tribute to a foreign Power should be liable to confiscation, but that with this exception commerce should be free. Cadore sent this paper to the Emperor, and within a few hours received a characteristic reply.
“You must see the American minister,” wrote Napoleon.[174] “It is quite too ridiculous (par trop ridicule) that he should write things that no one can comprehend. I prefer him to write in English, but fully and in a manner that we can understand. [It is absurd] that in affairs so important he should content himself with writing letters of four lines.... Send by special courier a cipher despatch to America to let it be understood that that government is not represented here; that its minister does not know French; is a morose man with whom one cannot treat; that all obstacles would be raised if they had here an envoy to be talked with. Write in detail on this point.”
Petry returned to Armstrong with the condemned paper, and received another, somewhat more elaborate, but hardly more agreeable to the Emperor. January 25, Cadore himself sent for the American minister, and discussed the subject. The Emperor, he said, would not commit himself to the admission of colonial produce; he wished to restrict American commerce to articles the growth or manufacture of the two countries; he would not permit his neighbors to carry on a commerce with America which he denied to himself; but the “only condition required for the revocation by his Majesty of the Decree of Berlin will be a previous revocation by the British government of her blockade of France, or part of France (such as the coast from the Elbe to Brest, etc.), of a date anterior to that of the aforesaid decree; and if the British government would then recall the Orders in Council which had occasioned the Decree of Milan, that decree should also be annulled.” This pledge purported to come directly from the Emperor, and at Armstrong’s request was repeated in the Emperor’s exact words.[175]
Neither the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of the Treasury, nor the Emperor in these discussions alluded to the proposed Decree of Vienna, the draft of which was sent to Paris in August, confiscating all American ships in reprisal for the seizures of French ships threatened by the Non-intercourse Act. Although that decree was the point which the Emperor meant to reach, not until January 25—when Champagny, after dismissing Armstrong, reported the interview to Napoleon, bringing with him at the Emperor’s request the text of the Non-intercourse Act—did the Emperor at last revert to the ideas of the Vienna Decree. The long hesitation proved how little satisfactory the plea of retaliation was; but no other excuse could be devised for a measure which Napoleon insisted upon carrying out, and which Champagny had no choice but to execute. The Emperor dictated the draft of a note,[176] in which the principles of confiscation were to be laid down:—
“If American ships have been sequestered in France, France only imitates the example given her by the American government; and the undersigned recalls to Mr. Armstrong the Act of Congress of March 1, 1809, which orders in certain cases the sequestration and confiscation of French ships, excludes them from American ports, and interdicts France to the Americans. It is in reprisal of this last provision that the American ships have been seized in Spain and Naples. The league against England, which has the cause of neutrals for its object, embraces now all the Continental peoples, and permits none of them to enjoy commercial advantages of which France is deprived. France will permit it in no place where her influence extends; but she is ready to grant every favor to the ships of a neutral Power which shall not have subjected themselves to a tribute, and shall recognize only the laws of their own country, not those of a foreign government.... If the Minister of the United States has the power to conclude a convention proper to attain the object indicated, the undersigned is ordered to give all his care to it, and to occupy himself upon it without interruption.”
Perhaps this was the only occasion in Napoleon’s life when he stood between a nation willing to be robbed and a consciousness that to rob it was a blunder. The draft of his note showed his embarrassment. Remarkable in many ways, it required special notice in two points. The proposed Vienna Decree confiscated American ships because French ships were forbidden under threat of confiscation to enter American ports. The note of January 25 suggested a variation from this idea. American ships were to be confiscated everywhere except in France, because they were forbidden to enter France. As they were also confiscated in France because they were forbidden to leave America, the Emperor had nothing more to demand. His reasoning was as convincing as a million bayonets could make it; but perhaps it was less Napoleonic than the avowal that for six months the Emperor had been engaged in inveigling American property into neutral ports in order that he might seize it.
Apparently Cadore still raised obstacles to the Emperor’s will. For some three weeks he held this note back, and when at last, February 14, he sent it to Armstrong, he made changes which were not all improvements in the Emperor’s text. Indeed, Napoleon might reasonably have found as much fault with Champagny as he found with some of his generals, for failing to carry out the orders he dictated:—
“His Majesty could place no reliance on the proceedings of the United States, who, having no ground of complaint against France, comprised her in their acts of exclusion, and since the month of May have forbidden the entrance of their ports to French vessels, under the penalty of confiscation. As soon as his Majesty was informed of this measure, he considered himself bound to order reprisals on American vessels, not only in his territory, but likewise in the countries which are under his influence. In the ports of Holland, of Spain, of Italy, and of Naples, American vessels have been seized because the Americans have seized French vessels.”
After such long discussions and so many experiments, Napoleon had become reckless of appearances when he allowed his foreign secretary to send this note of Feb. 14, 1810, in which every line was a misstatement, and every misstatement, as far as concerned America, was evident in its purpose; while apart from these faults, the note erred in trying to cover too much ground of complaint against the United States. Napoleon had, in the projected Decree of Vienna, ordered retaliation everywhere for the confiscation threatened by the Non-intercourse Act. Made to feel the impossibility of this course, he changed his ground, continuing to confiscate American ships in France under the old Bayonne Decree, and ordering the sequestration of American ships throughout the rest of Europe on the plea that other countries must not enjoy a commerce interdicted to France. Cadore’s note abandoned this ground again, in order to return to the doctrine of the projected Vienna Decree; and in the effort to give it a color of reason, he asserted that the Americans had seized French vessels.
Such a letter was a declaration of war six months after beginning hostilities; and it made no offer of peace except on condition that the United States should pledge themselves to resist every British blockade which was not real in the sense defined by Napoleon. Armstrong wrote to his Government, in language as strong as he could use, that nothing was to be expected from a policy that had no other foundation than force or fraud. His angry remonstrances had embroiled him with the Emperor, and he was on the point of quitting France. Under such circumstances he did not insist on breaking off further conversations with Petry, but February 25 he positively assured Petry that neither would the President and Senate ratify, nor would he himself as negotiator accept, a treaty in any form which did not provide reparation for the past as well as security for the future;[177] and March 10 he replied to the Duc de Cadore in what the Emperor would have called a morose tone, denying every assertion made in Cadore’s note,—reminding Cadore that the Emperor had received knowledge of the Non-intercourse Act at the time of its passage without a sign of protest or complaint; and, finally, renewing his old, longstanding grievances against “the daily and practical outrages on the part of France.”[178]
When the Emperor received Armstrong’s letter, which was excessively strong, and ended in a suggestion that Napoleon was trying to cover theft by falsehood, he showed no sign of anger, but became almost apologetic, and wrote to Cadore,[179]—
“Make a sketch of a reply to the American minister. It will be easy for you to make him understand that I am master to do here what America does there; that when America embargoes French ships entering her ports, I have the right to reciprocate. You will explain to him how that law came to our knowledge only a short time ago, and only when I had knowledge of it did I immediately prescribe the same measure; that a few days before, I was busying myself with provisions for raising the actual prohibitions on American merchandise, when the course of commerce (la voie du commerce) made known to me that our honor was involved, and that no compromise was possible; that I conceive America as entitled to prevent her ships from coming to England and France; that I approved this last measure, though there was much to be said about it; but that I cannot recognize that she should arrogate the right of seizing French ships in her ports without putting herself in the case of incurring reciprocity.”
One must answer as one can the question why Cadore, who had in his hands Armstrong’s letter of April 29, 1809,[180] officially communicating the Non-intercourse Act, should not have suggested to Napoleon that some limit to his failings of memory ought to be observed. Napoleon’s memory was sometimes overtasked by the mass of details he undertook to carry in his mind, but a striking incident always impressed itself there. Mme. de Rémusat[181] told how Grétry, who as member of the Institute regularly attended the Imperial audiences, was almost as regularly asked by Napoleon, “Who are you?” Tired at last of this rough question, Grétry replied by an answer equally blunt: “Sire, toujours Grétry;” and thenceforward the Emperor never failed to remember him. The United States in a similar tone recalled their affairs to the Emperor’s memory by the Non-intercourse Act; but had this “toujours Grétry” not been enough, Napoleon’s financial needs also made him peculiarly alive to every event that could relieve them, and his correspondence proved that the Non-intercourse Act as early as May, 1809, impressed him deeply. Yet in March, 1810, he not only convinced himself that this Act had just come to his knowledge, producing in him an outburst of national dignity, but he also convinced his Minister of Foreign Relations, who knew the contrary, that these impressions were true, and made him witness them by his signature.
Acting without delay on the theory of sudden passion, the Emperor signed, three days afterward, March 23, a decree known as the Decree of Rambouillet, in which the result of these long hesitations was at last condensed.[182] This document was a paraphrase of the projected Decree of Vienna of Aug. 4, 1809; and it showed the tenacity with which Napoleon, while seeming to yield to opposition, never failed to return to a purpose and effect its object. In order to carry out the Decree of Vienna in that of Rambouillet he was forced into a coup d’état. He had not only to expel his brother Louis from Holland, and annex Holland to France, but also to drive his ablest minister, Fouché, from the Cabinet.
Of the steps by which he accomplished his objects, something can be seen in his letters; of his motives, no doubt ever existed. Armstrong described them in strong language; but his language was that of a party interested. Thiers recounted them as a panegyric, and his language was even clearer than Armstrong’s. He made nothing of the Emperor’s pretence that his seizures were in reprisal for the Non-intercourse Act. “This was an official reason (une raison d’apparat),” said Thiers.[183] “He was in search of a specious pretext for seizing in Holland, in France, in Italy, the mass of American ships which smuggled for the English, and which were within his reach. He had actually sequestered a considerable number; and in their rich cargoes were to be found the means of furnishing his Treasury with resources nearly equal to those procured for him by the contributions of war imposed on the vanquished.”
The system of treating the United States as an enemy conquered in war rested on a foundation of truth; and as usual with conquered countries it met with most resistance, not from them but from bystanders. The Emperor of Russia, the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the Hanse Towns, and King Louis of Holland were the chief obstacles to the success of the scheme to which they were required to be parties. King Louis of Holland refused to seize the American ships at Amsterdam, and forced his brother to the conclusion that if nothing else could be done, Holland must be annexed to France.
For many reasons the annexation of Holland met with little favor in the Emperor’s family and among his Council. Chief among its opponents was Fouché, who sacrificed himself in his efforts to prevent it. Driven to the conviction that nothing but peace with England could put an end to the Emperor’s experiments on the welfare of France, Fouché resolved that peace should be made, and invented a scheme for bringing it about. As Minister of Police he controlled secret means of intrigue, and probably he acted without concert with his colleagues; but the motives which guided him were common to almost all Napoleon’s Cabinet. The only difference between ministers was, that while Cadore, Montalivet, Mollien, and Decrès stopped their opposition when it became dangerous, Fouché undertook to act.
Something of this came to Armstrong’s ears. As early as January 10[184] he reported a remark which he could not understand. “‘Do not believe,’ said a minister to me the other day, ‘that peace between us and England is impossible. If we offer to her the commerce of the world, can she resist it?’” Unknown to Armstrong, Napoleon had already made an advance to England. For this purpose he employed Labouchere, the chief banker of Holland, whose association with the Barings of London fitted him to act as an intermediary. The message sent by the Emperor through Labouchere could hardly be called an offer of terms; it amounted only to a threat that unless England made peace Holland should be annexed to France, and every avenue of illicit commerce in northern Europe should be stopped. In itself this message could hardly serve as ground for a treaty; but Fouché, without the Emperor’s knowledge, sent to London at the same time, about January 18, a secret agent named Fagan, to suggest that if Great Britain would abandon Spain, France would join in creating from the Spanish-American colonies a monarchy for Ferdinand VII., and from Louisiana, at the expense of the United States, a kingdom for the French Bourbons.[185]
This last idea bore on its face the marks of its origin. Fouché had listened to Aaron Burr, who after years of effort reached Paris, and presented to the government a memoir showing that with ten thousand regular troops, and a combined attack from Canada and Louisiana, the destruction of the United States was certain.[186] The scheme for placing the Spanish Bourbons on a Spanish-American throne probably came from the same Ouvrard whom Napoleon imprisoned at Vincennes, and whom Fouché took into favor.
Labouchere and Fagan went to England, and early in February had interviews with the British ministers, who quickly dismissed them. The only impression made on the British government by the double mission was one of perplexity at the object of an errand which appeared too absurd for discussion. The two agents returned to the Continent, and reported the result of their journey. Meanwhile Napoleon ordered Marshal Oudinot to march his army-corps into Holland, a step which brought King Louis to immediate submission. “I promise you,” wrote Louis, “to follow faithfully all the engagements you shall impose upon me. I give you my word of honor to follow them faithfully and loyally from the moment I shall have undertaken them.”[187] While Cadore was still negotiating with Armstrong for an arrangement with America, he was also employed in framing a treaty with Louis, which exacted the seizure of all American ships and merchandise in Dutch ports.[188] Louis came to Paris, and March 16 signed the treaty which by a secret stipulation provided for the seizure of American property.[189]
Matters stood thus April 1, 1810, when the ceremonies of the Imperial marriage interrupted for the moment further action. Napoleon had carried his point in regard to the punishment of America; but the difficulties he had already met were trifling compared with the difficulties to come.